(I DO NOT own The Walking Dead, Code Lyoko, or any of the names or brands that appear in this story. But I do own all OCs featured here unless stated otherwise.)
At the camp by the Quarry, the survivors were all going about their day and trying to get necessary tasks done. Just another day of hard work and trying to avoid drawing the attention of walkers in the area.
Some were cooking what had been scavenged or what little had been hunted. Some others were helping wash clothes or chop firewood. A couple were also busy hanging up wet laundry which needed to dry, and one guy who just finished up something was now trying to keep himself entertained with a solitary card game.
And one person... well, one person just wanted to see what would happen if she jumped off the roof of the RV and onto an old mattress that was found in the forest nearby.
Miranda stared down at the mattress as she studied the distance between it and the RV. She'd have to do a jump juuuuust right...
Next to her was Dale, who was holding a rifle and keeping watch for any walkers. He had on his boonie hat to shelter himself from the sun, but someone in the camp had also did him a solid and brought him a big umbrella and a cooler with some drinks inside of it. It was appreciated.
By now, the old man had given up on trying to stop the teen from doing her crazy stunt, so he was just focusing on doing the next best thing - ignoring her entirely.
Alex, who was also on top of the RV, was still trying as hard as he could to convince her not to do a jump "juuuuust right"... or a jump in general for that matter. After all, it wasn't like there was any functioning hospitals still out there that could cast up a broken leg anymore. The camp didn't even have much in the way of painkillers anymore!
So naturally, Alex was getting worried and stressed out over Miranda's foolishness.
"Miri, seriously, that ain't a good idea..." Alex warned his foolish friend. "I get you're bored a lot nowadays, but this is just a recipe for disaster..."
Miranda simply waved away his concern. "Relax, man... I've got this." she confidently told him. "I jumped from the roof of the Kadic Girls Dormatory once, y'know. If I could do that, then jumping from an RV ain't a problem at all!"
Ah, the whole 'jump from Kadic Girl's Dorm rooftop!' challenge from last year. Miranda invented it. Miranda was the master of it. She was the only one who ever actually did it, so by default she had to be the master, right?
Yeah, no, she's got this. She was just like the brave idiots on 'Jackass'.
Alex deadpanned at her mention of the incident back at Kadic. He didn't remember it quite as fondly as she did...
"Miri, you broke your leg in three places because of that..." Alex reminded her. He remembered it all too well, unfortunately... especially since the injury took Miranda out of the fight against XANA for a good five months until her leg healed. Five fucking months.
The wild girl simply waved off what he said. "Aw, that was just a one-time thing! Even professionals have an accident every now and then." Miranda told him with confidence.
Then, with a grin, Miranda added - "Y'know, for a cute guy, you worry way too much!"
Alex blinked, his face flushing ever so slightly. "... wait, I'm cute?" he asked.
Without answering Alexandr's confused query, Miranda simply let out a loud "whoop!", then jumped from roof of the RV. Though the jump actually was fairly decent by both Miranda and Alex's own standards, it unsurprisingly ended up falling short.
Instead of safely landing right on the old mattress, Miranda ended up landing face-first in the dirt right next to it, causing Alex to cringe at the obviously-painful sight.
The poor jumper's body laid still on the ground as Alex and several other nearby observers stared at her. It took a moment for Alex to realize that Miranda was still conscious let alone still alive.
"... owwwwwwwwwwwwwww ..." he could hear Miranda's dirt-muffled voice groan to herself.
With an annoyed-but-resigned sigh, the Russian teen decided to climb down and help his stupid friend tend to her new injuries. God, he hoped she didn't break anything...
As Alex climbed down from the RV and as Dale kept up his lookout on top of it, the rest of the camp continued on their business.
Further away, Lori and Amy - the sister of one of the people on the supply run - were busy gathering what they hoped were edible plants from the surrounding area, mainly just mushrooms. They needed more though, as this was a big camp with a couple dozen hungry people here. Every little bit helped.
Lori decided to head back into the woods to find some more (hopefully not-poisonous) mushrooms. She didn't intend to go too far since it was dangerous outside the camp, and she also instructed Carl to stay where adults could always see him. The boy was busy playing with Sophia near her family's truck.
The mother and believed-to-be widow made her way into the woods until she found some more mushrooms. Lori was nervous being out here by herself, but her empty belly and that of her son's motivated her to suck it up and deal with it. Hunger was a powerful motivator...
... hunger in more than one form. She didn't notice a figure approach from behind until it snapped a twig and caused a flock of nearby birds to take flight.
Lori gasped as she felt a hand press against her mouth, and another pull her downwards to lie on her back. For a moment she thought it was all over, that a walker had snuck up behind her and gotten her. But thankfully that wasn't the case...
The figure climbed on top of her while she was down. Shane...
Shane's whispers sent a shiver up Lori's spine. "Shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shhhh..." god, he had no idea how much she loved hearing his whispers...
Her sudden fright now replaced by a mix of amusement and annoyance at his 'surprise attack', Lori slapped Shane on the shoulder as he pulled his hand from her mouth.
"You scared the hell out of me!" Lori laughed to him.
"I bet," Shane grinned, "That's what you get for keeping me waiting. I was trying to be quiet..." he told her, "where you been?"
"Amy the mushroom queen," Lori explained the reason for her delay, "I had to wait for her to get back..."
Their lips met in a passionate kiss. A hungry kiss... they were out here for a reason after all...
"How much time do we have?" Shane asked after they broke the kiss.
Lori's hands went to her lover's belt and began undoing it. "Enough..." she answered. Lori was impatient - she wanted him just as much as he wanted her. Over and over again. Right here in the forest, right on the grass below. She was too aroused to care.
After Lori undid Shane's belt, he threw off his shirt, exposing his huge and firm muscles to her lust-filled eyes. God, she just wanted to lean down and run her tongue all over-
A soft gasp and moan left the believed-to-be-widow's mouth when Shane suddenly beat her at her own game. Shane had raised her shirt up to reveal her toned stomach, then he dragged his wet, warm tongue up and down her skin just the way she liked it, constantly leaving kisses and nibbles and love bites all over her as he did so. Fuck...
Lori was loving every second of this but she was getting impatient for the real fun. She pushed Shane's head away so she can raise her shirt over her head and reveal her bra-covered chest to her lover... but she also revealed the chain necklace which she wore.
Shane paused and looked at the necklace. The necklace held a heart-shaped locket which had pictures of Rick and Carl within it. Strung next to it was Rick's wedding ring.
A saddened look crossed Lori's face as she stared at the precious ring. She had taken it from him the last time she saw him in the hospital in King County, back before the virus began. She had planned to go back with Carl and Shane once everything calmed down... but the virus won. Everything collapsed.
... and Rick died ... her husband, the love of her life ... he was long gone by now ...
Realizing that Shane was looking at her and the ring, Lori soberly pulled the necklace off of her and placed it together with the locket and the ring on the ground nearby. Her thoughts were briefly devoted to Rick as she did so. She missed him terrible and thought of him every day...
Lori was taken out of her thoughts by Shane, and within moments they were passionately kissing again. They didn't stop kissing even as he pulled her pants the rest of the way off and entered her.
Moans and gasps constantly escaped both their lips as Shane thrusted in and out of her. They relished their mutual heat and sparks within themselves.
They had been waiting for a chance to do this for days. The wait was worth it... fuck, the wait was so worth it...
"Come here," Shane suddenly said, pulling himself out of Lori before he grabbed her by her waist.
Lori didn't dare resist as Shane suddenly began to turn her body over, revealing her back and rear to his needy gaze. If he wanted to have her like that, then by all means - he can take her. He can take her any way he fucking wants...
"Okay," Lori breathlessly said back all as she went onto her elbows and knees for him.
Soon enough, Shane's body climbed atop Lori's and the deputy had thrusted back into her. His mouth pressed against her ear as he made her feel his full strength and power.
The two could only barely keep themselves from screaming in delight as they continued, both quickly getting lost in their shared passion...
"Hey, are you two alive in there...?"
Rick and Aelita - both currently trapped inside of a tank and having no options on how to escape with their lives - both crawled as quickly as they could to the radio set on the other side of the tank cockpit.
As they did so, Rick accidentally banged his head on the hard metal ceiling, and Aelita let out a yelp when she accidentally hit her elbow against a steel beam. The teen and the deputy ignored their pains as they reached the radio. Rick grabbed it first and brought it to his mouth.
"Hello?" Rick asked into the radio. His voice was desperate. "Hello?!"
"There you are! You had me wondering..." the voice replied with relief, "did that girl make it too?"
"Y- Yeah, I did..." Aelita confirmed to the mysterious person while rubbing her elbow. She felt relieved to know she and Rick weren't alone in this situation now...
"Where are you? Outside?" Rick asked the guy on the radio with growing hope, "can you see us right now?" he further wondered.
"Yeah, I can see you..." the voice told him. "You're surrounded by walkers. That's the bad news..."
Rick appeared a bit dumbfounded by such a statement. No shit that's the bad news... he's only had bad news ever since he got out of that damn hospital!
"There's good news...?" Rick asked, baffled by what he had heard.
"... no."
Well, that settled that. The guy on the other end of the radio really didn't know how to raise Rick and Aelita's confidence... it was actually kind of pissing Rick off.
Aelita took the radio speaker from Rick's hand and brought it up to her mouth.
"Sir, did you see any other people out there with us? Where they could've gone...?" Aelita asked, desperately hoping her friends were all still alive.
"Yeah, yeah, they're here... I managed to get their attention and they ran to me." the voice assured the pinkette.
Then, another voice - Jeremie's she instantly recognized - was heard to say: "Aelita, we're fine! All of us! This guy saved our lives!"
Aelita let out a shuddery breath. Relief and joy soared within her upon hearing Jeremie's voice, and her remaining lingering thoughts about having to end it all in this tank had evaporated away.
Jeremie was still alive. So was Ulrich, Yumi, and Odd. Her friends were all okay... they were all okay... thank God...
Rick impatiently took the radio back from the pinkette's hands. Right - celebrate later, focus on survival now.
"Listen, whoever you are, I don't mind telling you I'm a little concerned in here..." Rick snapped, anxious to get out of the whole 'either die here in this tank or go outside and get eaten alive by the dead' kind of situation he and Aelita were in.
"Oh man, you should see it from over here..." the voice told him, "you'd both be having a major freak out..."
Aelita's eye twitched a little. "Do you have any advice for us? Y'know, something a bit helpful for us, perhaps...?" she asked. Her voice was strained by stress.
"Yeah... I'd say make a run for it." the voice on the radio suggested.
... what? Did they hear this guy right?
"That's it? 'Make a run for it'?!" Rick blinked in astonishment and a bit of barely-suppressed anger.
"My way's not as dumb as it sounds!" the voice assured him. "You've got eyes on the outside here... There's one geek still up on the tank, but the others have climbed down and joined the feeding frenzy where the horses all went down. You with me so far?"
"So far." Rick confirmed, nodding even though the voice couldn't possibly see that.
"Yeah, go on." Aelita confirmed as well. She tried to ignore the memory of what had happened to Bisous and the other horses...
The voice continued. "Okay, the street on the other side of the tank is less crowded." he explained, "If you move now while they're distracted, you stand a chance..."
"He's right!" the two now heard Odd's voice tell them. "If you don't make any mistakes then the plan should work! Do you guys have any ammo on you...?"
Rick cringed. When he and Aelita were felled from their horse, he remembered that he had accidentally dropped his duffle bag full of weapons and ammo...
That bag was more valuable than gold. If there was any way to get that thing back then he and Aelita had to try...
"We have guns and ammo in that duffle bag out on the street... any way we can get to it?" Aelita inquired as Rick held the radio speaker.
"Forget the bag, okay? It's not an option." the voice responded, ending Rick and Aelita's shared hope to retrieve the thing. It must have somehow been even worse out there than they initially thought. "What do you guys have on you?"
The two told the voice to hold on for a moment while they checked their current armament.
Rick's revolver was totally spent with that final shot on the walker who was in here, but the Beretta he took from the walker's corpse had a full fifteen-round magazine.
Aelita also still had the grenade that she found in here, but it wouldn't do much for them aside from bring in even more walkers from across the city, so she wouldn't dare use it unless it was absolutely necessary. Her pistol, however, still had five rounds left in it.
After taking their inventory of weapons, Rick grabbed the radio speaker again.
"I've got a Beretta with one clip. Fifteen rounds." Rick told the man on the other end. "The girl with me - she's got five rounds left in hers."
"Make 'em count." the voice advised. "Jump off the right side of the tank, keep going in that direction. There's an alley up the street, maybe fifty yards... Be there."
"You guys can do this..." they heard Yumi's reassurance, though neither mentioned how doubtful they felt right now. This plan felt suicidal...
Rick and Aelita exchanged a glance. This might've been crazy... but it was their only shot at staying alive...
"Hey, what's your name?" Rick then asked the man.
"Have you been listening? You're running out of time!"
Right. Introductions can wait until later - right now they had to get away from all these walkers.
The deputy then dropped the radio speaker, allowing it to loosely dangle by the cord from the CB radio. He then took a small trench shovel that was hanging from a nearby hook. It'll help him and Aelita for their upcoming run to that alleyway...
Before she and Rick would leave, however, Aelita had one thing she needed to do. She took the radio speaker into her hand and gave it a gentle squeeze.
"Jeremie...?" Aelita asked into the speaker.
"Aelita...?"
Smiling softly to herself, Aelita continued. "I want you to know... in case this goes wrong-"
"It won't... I promise."
Aelita smiled at the reassurance. She didn't realize how much she needed to hear that...
"I want you to know that I love you, Jeremie..."
"You too, Aelita... always..." Jeremie's voice was full of as much love as hers was. "Make it back to me, okay...?"
That was a request which the pinkette intended to fulfill. She allowed the radio to fall from her hand once again, and she readied her pistol for yet another fight.
Five rounds. Five rounds, hundreds of walkers, and fifty yards to run...
Make it to Jeremie. Make it to Jeremie. Make it back to him.
Rick and Aelita glanced at each other and nodded, signaling that they each were ready. It was now or never...
Moments later, Rick pushed open the top hatch of the tank turret and raised his upper body out of it. His first sight was that of the walker horde feasting upon the flesh of the three dead horses. The next thing he saw, however, was a walker on the turret, and the creature instantly noticed the man.
Without hesitation, Rick hit the walker across the face with the blade of the shovel. The walker, now with a fresh deep cut on the side of its face, snarled at Rick and tried to grab him in response, but the force of the hit had made the creature fall backward and off the tank.
The two didn't waste time. Rick and Aelita ran down the front of the tank turret and jumped. Both ultimately made painful landings - Rick exclaimed in pain when he landed on his side, and Aelita let out a gasp when she twisted her wrist.
However, the pair were back up on their feet and were running in moments. But the walkers were still all around them...
As they made their way toward the alley the man on the radio mentioned, Rick and Aelita fired off shots at any walkers which got in the way. All the while, hundreds from down the street and from blocks all around began to make their way toward them with each bullet fired...
*BANG!*
*BANG!*, *BANG!*
Keep running... keep running...
*BANG!*
*BANG!*, *BANG!*, *BANG!*
*BANG!*
Don't stop, don't stop, don't stop... not even for a moment...
*BANG!*
*BANG!*, *BANG!*
Almost there... almost there...
*BANG!*
*BANG!*, *BANG!*
One walker managed to reach out and yank Aelita backward by her hair, causing the girl to scream in pain. Had Rick not been alarmed, turned, and shot the walker to save her, it would've dragged Aelita down and sealed her fate as walker food.
The pinkette was shaken but alive, no scratches or bites as far as she could tell. She hurried on after Rick toward what they hoped was salvation.
Their only chance was that alley now. If they didn't make it, they'll die on this street...
Rick and Aelita were running on a mix of fear and adrenaline by this point. Walkers were all around them. They were moving as quickly as they could. The threat of a horrible death of being ripped apart and eaten was enough to push them forward.
The two had gotten so caught up in shooting and running that when they finally made it to the alley, they almost accidentally fired their guns at the first living face they've seen since getting separated from the others.
The face was of a very alarmed Asian man standing at an opened alleyway fence gate... it was the same man who spoke to them on the radio.
"WOAH! NOT DEAD!!!" the man exclaimed at the two runners before urging them into the alley. "COME ON! COME ON!"
Behind the man came four running figures. Jeremie, Ulrich, Yumi, and Odd...
"Aelita!" Jeremie exclaimed with relief. Aelita looked okay!
Rick and Aelita were happy to see the rest of the teens, and vice versa, but the reunion was going to have to wait - the walkers were still coming.
Without urging, the group of seven hurried back down the alleyway as the walkers followed. In only a moment they reached a fire escape ladder on the side of a building.
"Come on!" the man shouted to Rick and Aelita, and also the other teens.
One by one the group climbed up the ladder all while Aelita and Rick continued to shoot at the walkers, trying to buy as much time as possible for everyone to escape. Rick ran out of ammo in his pistol, and Aelita ran out too only a few seconds later.
For a moment the two just stood there in disbelief and fear at all of the dead that was pouring in the alley.
"What are you doing?!" the man demanded, "COME ON!"
"HURRY!" Ulrich shouted at the two.
Rick and Aelita shook themselves out of it, turned around, and went up the ladder. Rick allowed Aelita to go first, then he followed, climbing upward as the walkers got close enough to grab at his boots and his pant legs.
The two survivors climbed up the ladder as quickly as they could. By the time they reached the utility platform at the top of the ladder, they were both breathless... but at least they weren't dead.
After taking a moment to collect herself, Aelita engulfed Jeremie in a hug. The supergenius smiled and hugged her back.
"... thanks for making it back, Princess." Jeremie said, his voice soft and warm and full of love.
Aelita smiled at that. She squeezed her love a bit tighter, and she met his lips in a kiss.
As Aelita went to hug the other teens, the man went to lean against the platform's railing with Rick. The deputy was still struggling to catch his breath...
"Nice moves, both of you... 'Clint Eastwood' and 'Garter Colt'," the man complimented the two survivors, then he sarcastically added, "You the two Texan Rangers riding in to clean up the town?"
"It wasn't our intention..." Rick joked back before he looked downwards. The sight of so many walkers was still unnerving even after surviving them...
"Yeah, whatever..." the man told the deputy dismissively, then deadpanned, "you're both still dumbasses..."
Rick couldn't really disagree. Getting trapped in that tank and then having to run through a whole street full of dead was kind of a dumbass thing to do...
The deputy then held out his hand. "Rick... The girl with me is Aelita." Rick introduced both himself and the pinkette to the man. "Thanks..."
The man gladly accepted the hand and the gratitude.
"Glenn," the man, 'Glenn', introduced himself back, "you're both welcome..."
Rick nodded, then went to put his now-empty Beretta into Glenn's backpack. Might as well keep the thing just in case they found more bullets for it. Nine millimeter rounds were common enough to warrant keeping the pistol just on that chance alone.
After the gun was put in his backpack, Glenn glanced down at the mass of walkers below them and he instantly wished he hadn't...
"Oh no..." Glenn said, sweatdropping a little.
The rest of the group followed his gaze downwards. Amidst the hundreds of walkers in the alleyway, one had latched onto the ladder and was trying to make its way up to the group. It wasn't doing a good job... but it was still a bit alarming. And it was a reminder they couldn't go back down...
The only way forward from here on out was to go upward. The group all glanced at another ladder on the platform, this one which led straight to the roof of a building. Unlike the ladder which was in the alleyway, this ladder didn't have a safety cage around it.
Basically... don't slip.
"The bright side: it'll be the fall that kills us." Glenn joked to the others, "I'm a 'glass half-full' kind of guy..."
"Let's try to make sure that glass doesn't end up shattered in an alleyway full of walkers." Aelita told him. She was nervous enough at having to climb this unsafe ladder, and the thought of falling off of it and landing - especially in that alley full of the dead - was not a thought she wished to dwell on.
The others silently agreed with the pinkette. Soon, and one by one, they started to ascend the ladder to the top of the building...
Soon it was just Aelita and Jeremie left on the platform. The pinkette reached for the ladder, but not before she felt something grab onto her arm and pull her away.
Before she could say anything, Aelita was turned around and given a deep kiss from Jeremie. It was something unexpected and surprising... but not unwelcomed. After what she and Rick had just gone through, she didn't realize until now just how much she needed that.
After a moment, Jeremie broke the kiss and released his girlfriend. The two stared at each other for a moment before Aelita flashed a coy smile to him.
"You were worried for me that much, huh?" Aelita teased, though her voice was as full of amusement as it was love and joy.
Jeremie warmly smiled at her. "Like you wouldn't believe..." he told her before they met in a second, albeit much briefer, kiss.
"My, my," Aelita smirked after this second kiss was broken, "I rarely ever get to see you be so bold, Einstein... I like it."
"Hey, lovebirds!" they suddenly heard Ulrich call to them from up above. "are you guys gonna come with or would you rather we give you ten minutes alone down there?"
The couple's faces turned crimson as they heard Ulrich chuckle from up on the ladder, but also Yumi, Odd, and even Rick and Glenn all let out some chuckles too.
Neither of the embarrassed teens said a word as they went to climb the ladder and join the others...
After scaling the ladder to the roof (and thankfully resisting the urge to look downwards as they climbed), the group made their way across a walkway which led to another rooftop. Glenn had told the others that he had a group with him in Atlanta. It seemed like the safest place to be now, given the circumstances...
As they hurried across the next rooftop with the teens, Rick and Glenn talked with each other.
"Are you the one that barricaded that alley?" Rick asked, remembering how the alley seemed a bit fortified.
"Somebody did - I guess when the city got overrun." Glenn explained, "Whoever did it was thinking not many geeks would get through..."
The Lyoko Warriors struggled to hide their worries. If the city was overrun, as it clearly was, then where would the refugee center be...?
Unless... unless the refugee center was relocated... or didn't exist to begin with...
... where on earth were their friends if not Atlanta?
Soon the group made it to a hatch which would lead downwards into another building. Glenn went to open it for everyone.
Aelita approached him. "Why did you help me and Rick back at the tank?" she asked, "you easily could've just walked away, chose not to help us or our friends at all..."
As Aelita made her point, Glenn took off his backpack and tossed it down the hatch first. The teens all did the same. Would make climbing down another ladder a bit easier.
"Call it foolish naive hope that if I'm ever that far up shit creek, somebody might do the same for me." Glenn then told the pinkette.
The man then went to climb down the ladder, but not before he paused for a moment and looked back up at Aelita and Rick.
"... guess I'm an even bigger dumbass than you all..." Glenn said with a breathless grin, then continued his climb downwards.
Rick and the five teens all exchanged a look as Glenn continued downwards. Some appeared to be a bit bemused, some appeared mildly annoyed by the remark.
... their savior certainly knew how to make his point clear, didn't he?
Soon, the group had used the emergency exit in the back of the building and found themselves on its stairwell. A few flights downward on a fire escape was all that was left for them to traverse before they'd be back on street-level.
Glenn was in the lead. He hurried quickly down the stairs, silently making it clear to Rick and the teens that there was no time at all to waste. Not in a place which was as utterly life-threatening as Downtown Atlanta was, though it's not like that wasn't obvious.
As he practically ran down the stairs, Glenn was holding his walkie-talkie up to his lips. He and the group could see some walkers in the alley they were about to enter.
"I'm back!" he announced to someone. "Got six guests plus four geeks in the alley!"
The group stopped at the bottom of the stairs. The walkers down there immediately noticed them...
Before the undead could approach the group, however, they watched two men in riot gear suddenly burst out of the back exit of one of the buildings in the alley. The two ran up to two of the walkers and began beating them with baseball bats - the other two walkers were far enough away to not be a concern... yet.
"Let's go!" Glenn told the group since this was their chance to get out of here.
"Morales, let's go!" they also heard one of the men in riot gear exclaim to the other.
As soon as Glenn and the new people made it inside the building, the two rescuers abandoned their now-pacified walker and hurried in after the group. Once they got inside, they slammed and locked the door behind them. All were safe now... well, relatively safe at least...
Rick and the teens followed Glenn deeper into the building while the two rescuers followed behind them. Rick and the teens saw that the building was a clothing and jewelry store of some sort, judging by all the mannequins and glass display cases they saw throughout the main floor.
The newcomers saw there was two women here, one black and one with blonde hair. Before they could get through introductions though, one of them - the blonde woman - suddenly rushed forward, pushed Rick into a stack of boxes, and angrily aimed a pistol right in his face. His sheriff's uniform meant nothing...
"You son of a bitch, we oughta kill you!" she growled, then looked at the teens and snapped, "and you're all a bunch of idiots too! You guys killed us!"
"Just chill out, Andrea! Back off!" that 'Morales' guy from the alley urged.
The other woman went to 'Andrea's' side, "Come on, ease up..." she urged too.
Rick was shocked and clearly frightened to have a gun in his face like this. The teens felt the same simply by watching.
"'Ease up'? You're kidding me, right?!" Andrea demanded from the woman, "we're dead because of these stupid assholes!"
Morales, after finally ridding himself of his riot gear, hurried to Andrea's other side.
"Andrea, I said back the hell off!" Morales demanded. Though he was as pissed at the newcomers as she was, he knew how stupid such a confrontation was...
No one moved. No one said anything. The Lyoko Warriors could only feel worry for Rick, same for Glenn, the other woman, and the other rescuer in the riot armor.
Andrea just kept her pistol aimed right at Rick's face and Rick simply stood there with wide eyes. Morales frowned at the inaction.
"Well, pull the trigger." Morales challenged her. He knew she wouldn't... she couldn't... not when gunfire would draw in more of those freaks outside...
He turned out to be right in his guess. After another moment, Andrea finally lowered the pistol and backed a few steps away. Everyone could see tears in her eyes...
"... we're dead..." Andrea said, on the verge of breaking down right then and there. "... all of us... because of you people..."
"I don't understand..." a calmer Rick told her.
Morales grabbed Rick by his arm and began leading him along. The Lyoko Warriors, Glenn, and the others followed close behind them.
"Look, we came into the city to scavenge supplies. You know what the key to scavenging is? Surviving!" Morales chastised as he explained, "You know the key to surviving? Sneaking in and out, tiptoeing - not shooting up the streets like it's the O.K. Corral!"
"Every geek for miles around heard you guys popping off rounds!" the black woman stated with a frown.
As they reached the front of the store, Rick and the teens finally knew what these people were talking about.
As the six newcomers stared at what was ahead of them, Andrea could only glare at the same sight.
"You just rang the dinner bell..." she said, her voice full of anger and resignation.
At the glass windows and front doors, the stunned newcomers could see dozens of walkers banging against the glass as they desperately tried to make their way inside. The six could see that some of the glass was already cracking under the combined weight of so many of the undead out there...
They didn't mean to, they didn't mean to at all... but seeing this made them realize that they've made an awful mistake, and they've put innocent people's lives in danger...
"Get the picture now?" Morales sternly asked the newcomers.
"Y- Yeah, we do..." Odd murmured in a low voice, feeling guilty for putting strangers in any sort of danger. All of the other newcomers felt the same as he did...
The survivors backed away from the front of the store when they saw one of the walkers grab a rock and hit it against the glass. The fact that the walker somehow seemed smart enough to do that was just as frightening to them all as the breaking glass and doors were...
Everyone moved behind some of the clothing still on display just to get out of sight of those freaks...
"What the hell were you all doing out there anyway?!" Andrea demanded to know from the newcomers.
"We saw a helicopter! We tried to flag it down." Jeremie explained to her.
"Helicopter?" the other alley rescuer - a large black man - asked with clear dismissal. "Man, that's crap! Ain't no damn helicopter!"
"You were chasing a hallucination, imagining things... it happens." the black woman also added her disbelief.
"Do you seriously think that all six of us were hallucinating?" Aelita challenged her, gesturing to herself, to Rick, and then to the rest of the teens.
The black woman - 'Jacqui' was her name but proper introductions could wait - didn't answer when Aelita put it like that. Neither did Glenn or any of the others in his group.
"Hey, T-Dog, try that C.B." Morales said to that black man, 'T-Dog', "can you contact the others?"
"Others? You mean that refugee center?" Ulrich asked him.
Jacqui snorted, thinking the statement was stupid. "Yeah, the 'refugee center'... they've got biscuits waiting at the oven for us!" her voice was as dismissive as it was sarcastic.
That simple statement drew surprise and sadness from Rick and the five Lyoko Warriors. There really wasn't a refugee center here in Atlanta... coming here to try and find their people was a lost cause before they even made the trip...
The realization that all of their friends weren't in the city somewhere was yet another heartbreak for all of them to deal with... what on earth were they going to do now? How could they even begin to track down their people?
... that is if they were even still alive to begin with ...
"... guys?"
The five Lyoko Warriors all froze. All of them recognized the voice of who said that, and they turned to face the person as she came out of a nearby stairwell...
Jennifer Mason - one of their fellow Lyoko Warriors who the group had come to Atlanta to find - was about as shocked as a young cowgirl could ever get in her life. Her friends who had been an ocean away and presumed dead to her were now not only still alive, but were here... here right in front of her...
They were alive... By God, somehow Jeremie, Aelita, Ulrich, Yumi, and Odd were all still alive...
When the five turned to face her, they and Jennifer all hurried to meet in a big group hug all as the adults around them watched in astonishment. None of these six Lyoko Warriors had a dry eye as they reunited...
"What the fuck are you all doing here?!" Jennifer asked. Tears went down the sides of her face, and her voice was euphoric.
"We came to surprise you guys!" Jeremie smiled at her. "We've been following the school's route down the East Coast! We wanted to meet you guys in Atlanta!"
"You're shittin' me!" Jennifer actually laughed in disbelief. Her lost friends had been in America this whole time?!
... as quick as her laughter began, however, Jennifer went silent.
She glanced at her group of friends - Jeremie, Aelita, Odd, Yumi, and Ulrich...
... Jeremie, Aelita, Odd, Yumi, and Ulrich ...
... One, two, three, four, five...
...
...
Only five...? The cop with them made six, of course, but that wasn't who she was expecting. There was supposed to be someone else here with her five friends...
And as much as it pained her to think, she could already suspect why this was the case... why one of her friends was missing...
"... William ...?" Jennifer inquired with dread.
The other five Lyoko Warriors stayed silent. Jennifer saw a tear go down Aelita's face... it was all she needed to see to know he was gone...
"... Kiwi too." Odd murmured to the Texan girl, "we brought him with for the trip... but... but he... he... the walkers..." he couldn't continue without risking falling into sobs.
Jennifer's eyes watered at the news of William and Kiwi. No...
"Oh God, guys... I'm so sorry..." Jennifer told them, tears in her own eyes. William was a good friend, and she loved that little mutt of Odd's...
The rest of this group - including Glenn - all looked a bit astonished to see such an interaction. These newcomers and Jennifer weren't strangers, that was clear...
"Wait, you know these people?" Glenn asked with surprise.
"I don't know the cop," Jennifer explained to him as she wiped her eyes, "but the rest of them are all friends of mine from my school... close friends... I vouch for them."
That seemed to put most of the group at east, but Andrea still looked a little hesitant to welcome these new people, even if some of them were just teenagers...
Yumi and Jeremie then stepped up to Jennifer. The cowgirl could instantly see the looks of desperate hopes on their faces, and she already knew what it must be about...
"Jen, please tell me you've seen Hiroki..." Yumi asked. Her tone sounded almost like she was begging - something which unnerved Ulrich and the others.
"And my cousin..." Jeremie also said in the same voice. Aelita's hand went to his shoulder because of that.
Much to the shattered hopes of both Jeremie and Yumi, they could only watch as Jennifer's face turned to sadness.
"... I'm so sorry, Yumi... Jeremie... but I haven't seen either of them since the city fell days ago..." Jennifer told them, her voice solemn and truly apologetic. "Things were so chaotic and then the military bombed the streets and made everything worse... Last I saw them they were alive, but we got separated... I have no idea where they went..."
Jeremie simply lowered his gaze. He didn't expect to actually find his cousin alive here... though it still hurt to hear that he was missing. Likely dead...
Yumi, in contrast, couldn't hold back her sobs. If Hiroki wasn't here in Atlanta... then where could he be? She had no clue how to even begin to find him, alive or dead!
As Ulrich went to comfort Yumi, Aelita stepped forward, her anxiousness apparent to everyone around her. Although her heart ached for both Jeremie and Yumi... she needed an answer to her own personal question...
"What about Dylan and Chase...?" Aelita asked the fate of her brothers.
Jennifer turned to face the pinkette and her question. To Aelita's growing hope, she saw that the girl slowly begin to smile.
"They're here... here in this building... both of them are..." Jennifer confirmed to the pinkette.
Aelita's eyes slowly widened at the revelation. She swore she felt her heart skip a beat.
... they're still alive ...
... they're both still alive ...
It took a moment for Aelita to finally collect her thoughts, let alone find her voice again. When she did, her voice was very soft, very quiet. Nearly a whisper. And she could only say a single word:
"... where?"
Jennifer opened her mouth to tell Aelita, but-
*BANG!*
As if on cue, a loud gunshot was heard from somewhere far up above the group and it silenced Jennifer. The sound startled everyone both because of the unexpectedness of it and because it would undoubtedly draw in even more walkers from across the city... what few walkers that hadn't already been drawn in this direction, more like.
Aelita ignored the confusion. Ignored the gunshots even. Her brothers were not only alive... they were only a short distance away...
Chase and Dylan... her brothers... alive...
... the shocked pinkette found herself take a step forward toward the stairwell door Jennifer came out of. Then another. Then another ...
*BANG!*
Another loud gunshot was heard from somewhere high up above them. Aelita still ignored it all. She took another step. Then another... then she began to pick up her pace toward the stairwell...
Glenn, Jennifer, and the rest of their people seemed to immediately realize who was firing off shots.
"Oh no, is that Dixon?!" Andrea groaned in a mix of shock, worry, and anger at the source of the gunfire.
"What is that maniac doing?!" Jacqui also exclaimed.
Jeremie turned to tell Aelita something. Instead of seeing his girlfriend by his side, however, he only looked just in time to see the stairwell door starting to close. He briefly saw a flash of pink hurrying up the stairs on the other side of that door before it finally shut...
"Aelita?!" Jeremie exclaimed before running after her. This drew the attention of the rest of the Lyoko Warriors, who promptly sped after Jeremie and Aelita.
The sight of all the teens running into the stairs made the adults each share a glance before they also started running. Aelita wasn't their concern - the maniac up on the roof senselessly firing shots and drawing in every walker in the city was.
Soon everyone was hurrying up flights of stairs... and ahead them all was a pink-haired girl full of hope...
Aelita's heart was racing as she practically flew up the flight of stairs leading to the roof. She was going so fast that her friends and all of the other people she had just met were all soon struggling to catch up to her.
Her brothers were alive... Dylan and Chase were still alive!
"Aelita, hold your horses!" she heard Jennifer call to her.
She wasn't going to do that.
"Wait, princess!" she heard Jeremie also call.
No.
"Jeez, 'Lita, slow down!" she also heard Ulrich exclaim.
Never.
Aelita ignored all of her friends since she couldn't stop. Wouldn't stop. All this time worrying and praying that her brothers were still alive had finally been answered. By some miracle both of them were alive, and by an even bigger miracle they were right above her - literally.
The teen ignored the burning exhaustion in her legs as she ran up floor after floor, thankful that she could at least see since there was a skylight that illuminated her surroundings. What mattered most to her right know was the fact that each step she took was one step closer to what was left of her family...
Soon enough, she could hear sounds coming from up above. One was another gunshot, which now made her unprotected ears ring since she was so close to it.
*BANG!*
The other sounds were shouts... the shouts were some of the voices she had been praying to hear ever since the highway bombing...
"Merle, Jesus!" she finally heard the all-too-familiar voice of a boy exclaim.
"Dyl, stay back from him!" another boy's voice - one which brought just as much relief to her ears.
With a renewed vigor, Aelita pushed on for the metal door at the top of the stairwell...
On the roof, there was a situation unfolding...
Merle Dixon - a trouble for his own group for about as long as they've been together - had a proud look on his face as he lowered the rifle scope from his eye. Another one of those dead freaks taken out... what was his kill count now? Four? Five? It was easier than any of the huntin' he and his brother ever did in the wilds...
Cycling the bolt to remove the spent cartridge and add another, the drug-addicted hillbilly couldn't help but chuckle as he raised the rifle up again, looked through the scope, and-
*BANG!*
Another shot. Another of the dead falls down... a darkie this time, if Merle saw right through his scope. That made the shot even better in his racist methed-out mind.
"Merle, for Christ sakes, just... lower the gun before you draw the rest of the whole city on us!"
The two annoying kids behind him - brothers like him and Daryl, only far younger, far dumber, and far more sober - weren't helping him when it came to all the fun at hand. They were already a pretty big distraction as it was, and their nagging was only getting worse and worse with each passing second...
Behind the man, young Chase and Dylan Enheart could only watch as he kept firing off more shots at walkers down on the streets below. They had to stop him, they knew that, but it was hard to find a way to do it with someone like Merle Dixon - let alone an armed Merle Dixon.
"Are you out of your fucking mind?!" Chase angrily demanded to know.
"I dunno!" Merle laughed as he lowered the rifle scope again for a moment. "If I am then it's not as bad as those freaks down there! I'm splatterin' brains all over the street!"
"Merle, you're drawing in walkers from across the whole city! You're gonna get us all killed!" Dylan growled in fear and frustration.
Merle simply laughed again. "More for me to shoot then!" he grinned, then raised his rifle and fired another shot. Another dead darkie fell over with a fresh hole in its head.
Chase and Dylan could only look on as Merle kept firing. Both of them knew how unwise it could be to try and rush the man and take his gun from him...
"God," Dylan growled to his older brother, "can this situation get any more crazy?!"
*FWOOSH!*
The sound of the stairwell's door being pushed open with hard force was enough to make Dylan turn to look and see who had come up to the roof, but Chase was still focused on Merle in his anger. Merle didn't turn either because, well, shooting walkers was too fun.
Because of that, Chase didn't notice how his younger brother's eyes suddenly widen at the sight of someone, or how the color quickly drained out of his face...
"Merle, I don't know how else to explain this to you!" Chase growled at the racist redneck, "we're in a city full of probably thousands of walkers that wanna eat us alive! Noise draws them in! Shooting your gun makes lots and lots of noise! If we make lots and lots of noise - we die!" The teen was so pissed that he was talking as if he was speaking to a literal three year old.
He continued. "I know you're stupid and I'm so sorry your parents had to suffer with your imbecility," Chase frowned, "but this is totally nuts even for you!"
"Watch it, boy..." Merle told him in an icier tone than before. He was willing to take complaints, even silly stupid ones; but if this dumb kid mentioned his momma or his piece of shit father even just one more time, then he'd be liable to aim his next shot at him instead...
Now just as pissed at the warning from Merle as he was about all of the shooting, Chase struggled really hard to keep his composure. His brother had already lost his own, but for a different and completely unrelated reason...
"... Chase ...?" Dylan murmured. His voice was quiet. Shocked. Barely above that of a whisper.
"And honestly, y'know what? I've got some other shit I wanna say to you too!" Chase continued his rant, having not heard his brother, and also choosing to ignore Merle's threat. The fuck was this psycho going to do? Shoot him?
Chase continued again. "like what's up with all the racist shit you've been spewing?!" he demanded to know, "The whole time I've known you, you've just been bitching about black people and Democrats, you've joked that Glenn wants to eat dog, and you've said that you wanna have Morales and his family deported whenever all of this dies down! Fuck you, dude!"
"I only says what I see is the truth, kid. Sue me." Merle shrugged at the angry teen and fired off another shot.
Dylan, meanwhile, kept trying to get his brother's attention while not looking away from something.
"Chase, you need to look-"
"-and then there's all those drugs you've got stashed away in that stupid bike of yours - I've seen you with them!" Chase continued, having wanted to get all of this and a hell of a lot more out for days now and being unable to stop himself now that he finally could, "You know that we have kids back at the camp, right?! What if they find them?! And I haven't even gotten started on that stupid SS symbol you've got stenciled on the fuel tank, you stupid fucking son of a bit-!"
"Chase, for Christ's sake, just shut the fuck up and turn around right now..."
In annoyance, Chase rolled his eyes and turned to see what his brother wanted. When he looked and saw the stunned pink-haired girl who was standing by the stairwell, he blinked, and after a moment he gave her a far-too-casual wave for a situation such as this.
"... oh, hey 'Lita." Chase greeted, seemingly not appearing just as shocked as Dylan or Aelita were. The two were even more shocked due to his lack of a reaction.
Chase then turned to face Merle once again and continue his rant, but then the teen suddenly froze in realization.
... wait a second ...
...
... 'Oh, hey 'Lita'... ?
...
... 'Oh, hey 'Lita'... ?
...
... 'Oh, hey 'Lit - HOLY SHIT, IT'S AELITA!!!"
... slowly, the boy turned around again to see not only his little brother gawking in complete astonishment, but his little sister too. Aelita... Aelita who he had resigned himself to probably never seeing again, here in the flesh once more...
Before Chase or Dylan could say or do anything, Aelita rushed forth to engulf the two in a hug. She had already started crying before she got to them...
As the other Lyoko Warriors burst out the stairwell door, Dylan and Chase returned the hug. Both were so stunned that they couldn't even find words...
Aelita understood. The happy tears continued to flow as she smiled softly to herself. She tightened her hug... almost as if she thought they'd disappear if she let go.
"... I missed you too ..." she whispered to them. She knew. They didn't have to say anything...
Chase and Dylan exchanged a glance. After a moment the two smiled, and they hugged their little sister even tighter.
At long last, the three were reunited once again...
*BANG!*
Merle, without any care or consideration toward the teens, decided to ruin the moment by going back to target shooting walkers. He had shot another - cursing to himself as he saw his shot nail the dead fucker in the jaw instead of the brain. Must've zeroed the scope wrong or something...
Aelita, Dylan, and Chase all let go of each other and directed glares at the redneck's back. Soon, they heard the door open again, and the sounds of fast-approaching feet.
"Hey, Dixon, are you crazy?!" Morales demanded to know as he and all the others made it to the roof. His tone was full of fury.
Chase and Dylan, shocked as they were to see their sister again, were now just as shocked to see Jeremie, Odd, Yumi, and Ulrich. They were still alive too...
A laugh was heard from Merle before he fired off yet another shot from his rifle. Morales' 'complaint' seemed to be funny to him more than anything else.
"Hey!" Merle said with amusement as he gestured toward the group with his rifle. "Y'all be more polite to a man with a gun! Huh?! Only common sense!"
Merle noticed there was some new people here. One was a cop, the rest were some more damn kids... as if the camp didn't already have enough useless mouths to feed.
He gestured with his rifle toward the newcomers. "who're they?" Merle demanded to know.
"Friends of Dylan, Chase, and I." Jennifer told him with a frown, "you got a problem with them being here with us, Dixon...?"
"Nah," Merle waved his rifle dismissively, "I ain't got no trouble with having more walker bait around me, girl. It betters my odds for when the shit hits the fan..." He didn't know how these people knew those kids, how they managed to find them, or how they got in the city alive... and he didn't give a single shit either.
Jennifer's glare only deepened. However, Merle wasn't looking at her anymore... someone else had already caught his attention.
A shiver of discomfort ran up Aelita's spine as Merle's predatory eyes had settled upon her.
"Mmmm, now lemme lookatcha for a sec..." Merle grinned, showing off his dirty teeth while he eyed the young pinkette's figure up and down. He liked what he saw...
Aelita crossed her arms, and her glare toward the man in the leather vest deepened. Another moment went by before Merle spoke again.
"Soooo..." the racist idiot continued to grin, "does the carpet match those pretty pink drapes of yours, little lady...?" he licked his lips, "you mind givin' Ol' Merle a peek...?"
The look of pure rage in Aelita's eyes could melt ice. She'd never met anyone as crass as this in her life... that alone almost made her feel as angry as the comment itself.
No, she wasn't going to let this fool ruin the happy reunion she was enjoying. This 'Merle Dixon' wasn't going to ruin any of this...
Her moment of shock and discomfort quickly passed, and only anger remained. To show what she thought of such a 'request', Aelita spat on the ground right in front of Merle.
"... fuck you." her voice held a noticeable snarl as she spoke back.
As absolutely furious as all of the Lyoko Warriors were about Merle's 'request' from Aelita, the teens couldn't help but feel a little stunned by the words they had heard. Aelita wasn't one to curse... though being sexually harassed by a gun-wielding creepy racist psychopath in the middle of a city full of walking flesh-eating corpses oughta be enough to make her do just that...
Amused by such a defiant reply from a girl like this, Merle's grin only grew. Cute...
"If only..." Merle chuckled, clearly having some dirty thoughts of the pinkette in his mind. It only made Aelita angrier.
Yumi then stepped forth and protectively put herself in front of Aelita. Like her, Yumi was far too angry to feel intimidated in any way by the rifle Merle was holding...
"Keep away from her or I'll smash your teeth down your throat." Yumi warned. Gun or not, it was a warning she intended to follow through on if she needed to.
"Seconded." Dylan frowned before he, Chase, and Jeremie all went to join Yumi as Aelita's guards.
Merle didn't look anywhere near intimidated by the threats. Instead, he looked rather amused...
"Glenny boy, look! You're not the 'Lone Chinaman' anymore!" Merle laughed as he pointed at Yumi, much her and Glenn's growing anger and annoyance.
The racist fool then reached up to his eyes and pulled the eyelids to their sides so that his eyes would appear slanted. "Ching-chong-ching-chong-wanna-wanna-bing-bong! Nagasaki go 'boom!' Aaaaaa~!" Merle laughed at his own stupid words, "'Sucky sucky' for five 'dorra!', right, 'slanty'? Ha!"
Merle lowered his hands and grinned at Yumi, "Shit, girl, you're gonna be fun to be around! Gonna be a big help in curing my boredom..."
Yumi was even more enraged by such awful antics. She'd have punched the idiot and knocked him out cold if he wasn't armed. Bastard...
Glenn looked very annoyed as well, but more so tired of Merle and his bullshit than anything else. He must've been dealing with this kind of bullshit ever since he met the guy. Everyone else was clearly annoyed as well... but that goddamned gun prevented anyone from trying to shut him up...
"Leave her alone!" Ulrich warned, already cracking his knuckles for a fight. No one was going to insult his girlfriend like that...
With a laugh, Merle turned and raised his rifle again, zeroing in on the walking corpse of a woman far down below. That punk couldn't be worth less of his time if he tried!
*BANG!*
"Man, you're wasting bullets we ain't even got!" T-Dog called in anger. "And you're bringing even more of them down on our ass! Man, just chill!"
Merle was enjoying every moment of this. Another laugh escaped his lips as he gestured toward T-Dog and the others with the barrel of his loaded rifle, just for fun.
"Hey," Merle grinned as he approached to stand face-to-face with him, "bad enough I've got this taco bender on my ass all day," he said, gesturing to Morales for a moment, "now I'm gonna take orders from you? I don't think so, bro... That'll be the day..."
It was clear what Merle meant by that. Oh hell no, T-Dog wasn't going to back down from something like that... especially not from a fucking prick like Merle.
"'That'll be the day'?" T-Dog frowned, "you got something you wanna tell me...?"
"Hey, T-Dog, man, just leave it, alright?..." Morales urged his friend from nearby.
"No!"
Morales tried once more. "It ain't worth it..." he said before he turned his attention to Merle. "Now Merle, just relax, okay? We've got enough trouble..."
The newcomers all looked questioningly toward Glenn, Jennifer, and the Enheart brothers. All four of them stayed silent, with Glenn shaking his head and Dylan raising a finger up to his lips to urge them all not to get involved. Best for them all to leave it alone... at least while a gun was involved.
Meanwhile, the confrontation between Merle and T-Dog continued while everyone kept watching them.
"You wanna know the day?" Merle challenged.
"Yeah..." T-Dog said through gritted teeth.
Merle grinned. "I'll tell you the day, Mr. 'Yo'", he said as an insult, "It's the day I take orders from a nigger!"
That did it.
Enraged, T-Dog rushed forward and tried to throw a punch into Merle's ugly white face. But unfortunately for him, Merle dodged it with ease and then countered by hitting T-Dog in the face with the butt of his rifle. This dazed T-Dog, and allowed Merle to run up and beat his fist against the black man's face after setting aside the rifle.
T-Dog was hit again, and the hit made him lose his step, trip, and hit his face against some of the pipe infrastructure. Merle had beaten his opponent but he didn't stop with this - he went over and began to savagely kick and punch T-Dog while he was down.
Everyone screamed at Merle to stop, but the bastard wouldn't. Rick rushed forward to try and help T-Dog only to get a fist in the face which literally sent him flying a couple of feet. Chase and Ulrich likewise ran forward after Merle, but they were rewarded with their own torment.
When Merle saw the teens, he attacked them next. Chase got a kick to the stomach which was so hard that it sent him to the ground while making him wheeze in agony. Ulrich actually had better luck - he managed to get a good hit in at Merle's jaw, but this only angered the psycho.
Soon, Ulrich was also sent flying to the floor with a fresh black eye. Blood dripped from the corner of his newly-busted as well.
Some of Chase and Ulrich's fellow Lyoko Warriors went to their sides as Merle went back to T-Dog. He climbed on top of the man and punched him in the face over and over again. In his awful mind, this was a punishment fitting for a fool who dared try telling someone of a superior race how to act...
Merle did what he wanted to do... no one - certainly not someone like T-Dog or others of his kind - was going to stop him. Morales learned this the hard way by taking an elbow to his gut when he rushed to help T-Dog.
Finally, Merle ceased beating T-Dog's face in... though this was only so he could take a loaded pistol out of his waistband and aim it right at T-Dog's face.
The victim's eyes widened, though only out of shock.
No, T-Dog didn't dare look out in fear... never out of fear... not to a piece of shit like Merle...
"No, no, no!" Andrea urged the man with the gun, "Please, please don't..."
For a moment, everyone was silent and still. The sounds of distant thunder and heavy breathing was all that could be heard.
Merle took a moment to look at the others around him. All were either terrified or pissed or both... which is exactly what he wanted. If this little "demonstration" didn't show all these people that the man with the gun was the one who was in charge, then nothing else will.
As a final insult, Merle spat on T-Dog's shirt and rubbed it in, letting out a yell of triumph before he finally stood up.
"Yeah! All right!" Merle said in a joyous and mocking way, "we're gonna have ourselves a little 'powwow', huh? Talk about who's in charge..."
The others all shared glances before Merle raised his gun upwards, aiming it toward the others but not directly at them.
A few hurried to drag T-Dog, Chase, and Ulrich all away from Merle, and thankfully the man didn't try to stop any of them.
"I vote me!" Merle told everyone exactly who should be the boss here. "Anybody else...? Huh...? Democracy time, y'all! Show of hands!"
Merle raised up his free hand, casting his 'vote' on who should be in charge here - himself.
"All in favor?" Merle asked with sarcasm, "huh? Come on, let's see 'em..."
Reluctantly, one by one, most of the others began to raise their hands. He decided to ignore the fact that Jacqui and Jennifer and a few others were each flashing him middle fingers. And he also ignored that heated glare still coming from the pink-haired girl, whatever he fuckin' name was...
"Yeah, that's good..." Merle chuckled, "now that means I'm the boss, right? Yeah...? Anybody else? Anybody...?"
"... yeah."
Merle turned just in time to finally realize Rick had snuck up behind him. The cop already had Merle's rifle in his hands, though he wasn't aiming it at him.
Before Merle could even raise his pistol to fire, Rick had already bashed the butt of the rifle into his jaw. Merle instantly fell to the ground, stunned but not out.
Rick didn't waste time. He hurried over and pressed his knee against Merle's face to keep him down, and he readied his handcuffs. By the time Merle had snapped out of the stun of getting hit by a rifle butt, he had already gotten one of his hands cuffed to a part of all of the industrial piping on the roof. He was locked up tight...
The others watched in astonishment as Rick grabbed Merle by his shirt and lifted him up a bit, meeting the psycho eye-to-eye.
"Who the hell are you man?!" a pained Merle demanded to know.
"'Officer Friendly'." Rick growled, barely keeping his anger in check.
To the relief and respect of the others, Rick had ensured Merle wasn't a threat anymore. But just to be on the safe side, Jeremie hurried over to collect Merle's fallen rifle. Cuffed or not, he wasn't going to risk that psychopath grabbing hold of a weapon.
Nearby, Chase was finally helped to his feet by Dylan and Jennifer. Ulrich also was brought up to his feet with Yumi's help.
"You stupid fucking prick! Look what you did!" Chase wheezed in his pain and anger to the now-handcuffed psycho. He honestly wasn't sure if he had a cracked rib or not.
"Shut your mouth you little-!" Merle tried, only to get a hard punch to the gut from Rick. That silenced him for the moment.
Now since that was out of the way, Rick reached over and took Merle's pistol. He removed the magazine from it, then cocked it. The bullet in the chamber went up into the air and Rick effortlessly caught it. Nah, Merle wasn't gonna be threatening anyone again now... he was certain.
"Look here, Merle... things are different now." Rick frowned, "there are no 'niggers' anymore. No dumb-as-shit, inbred white-trash fools either..."
Merle rolled his eyes at the insult. Rick continued regardless of if Merle gave a shit what he was saying or not.
"There's only white meat and dark meat - there's us and the dead." Rick stated, "we survive this by pulling together, not apart..."
"Screw you, man..." Merle frowned. Unlike before, his voice was now quieter...
Rick rolled his eyes. "I can see you make a habit of missing the point..."
"Yeah? Well, screw you twice..."
Aelita deadpanned at her harasser. Who on earth raised this guy...?
"You're not very intelligent, are you?" the pinkette challenged the fool.
"... screw you too, you stupid pink bitch."
With a humph, Aelita crossed her arms and shook her head in utter disbelief as all of the other Lyoko Warriors shot daggers at Merle.
"Your parents should've taught you how to be respectful to a lady..." Rick frowned.
"The only 'lady' I see here is you, pig..." Merle frowned and turned toward him, "and lady or not, I only gut pigs, not treat 'em nice..."
Rick suddenly loaded Merle's pistol, cocked it again, and pressed it right against the side of the idiot's head. Merle cringed slightly, but only from the sudden cold of the steel barrel pressing against him. Other than that he showed no reaction.
If this idiot cop thought this was the first time he's ever had a gun aimed at him, he was wrong...
"'Oughta be polite to a man with a gun'," a heated Rick repeated Merle's earlier words right back to him, "'only common sense'..."
"You wouldn't..." Merle challenged, "you're a cop..."
Rick lowered the gun and looked deep into the man's eyes. "All I am anymore is a man looking for his wife and son. Anybody that gets in the way of that is gonna lose..." he warned, "I'll give you a moment to think about that..."
As Merle sat in silence, Rick noticed something on the psycho's face. He began to pat him down and soon found what he had suspected was on him.
From one of the vest pockets, Rick pulled a small glass vial full of white powder. It was clear to all that it wasn't exactly flour inside the thing...
"Got some on your nose there..." Rick said, flicking Merle's nose just to emphasize.
"What're you gonna do? Arrest me?" an amused Merle challenged.
Merle then laughed... but immediately went from amusement to anger as he saw Rick stand up, go to the side of the roof, and toss the vial away.
"Hey!" Merle growled at the loss of his precious crank, "What are you doing?! Man, that was my stuff!" he shouted as he struggled against his cuffs. "HEY!"
Rick and the others all ignored the psycho. Let him mull over his actions when he calms down... the fucking idiot had no other choice.
"If I get lose, you'd better pray!" Merle shouted at Rick, at everyone, "yeah, you hear me, you pig?! You hear me?!"
Odd couldn't help but make a joke at the fool's expense, "not really," he grinned, "can you speak up a little please?"
Such a joke actually made several of the others laugh, or at least chuckle. The Lyoko Warriors all were howling in their amusement, especially Aelita and Yumi.
Merle, however, snarled from rage and viciously kept trying-but-failing to break free from his new confinement. Whether he liked it or not, he was stuck there for now...
Ohhhh he'd gut that little fucker with the stupid hair if he could! Same for the cop! Same for all these fucking people all around him!
No one laughs at Merle Dixon and lives! They're dead as soon as he's free! Mark his fucking words!
Meanwhile, all as Merle continued his futile struggle to escape, Rick went over to the barrier on the side of the roof and leaned against it, flexing one of his hand in pain as he gazed down upon all the walkers below him. He couldn't believe how many of them there was down there...
Morales, now much more appreciative of both Rick and the kids he arrived with, went to join him.
"You're not Atlanta P.D..." Morales pointed out the obvious, "where you from?"
"Up the road a ways..." was what Rick decided to tell him. He didn't know these people enough yet to fully trust them...
Morales nodded, taking the answer as it was for now.
"Well, 'Officer Friendly'," Morales joked before turning his gaze downwards toward the streets full of dead, "welcome to the big city..."
More thunder was heard as Rick and Morales continued to watch the countless walkers below them... they knew they were trapped here, that they would die here, unless they all somehow figured out a way to get themselves out of this mess...
As worried as Rick and the others all were, Aelita, for once, finally felt like she was on top of the world. Now that the craziness had settled for the moment, the pinkette went back to her brothers, Chase having been leaned against the rooftop barrier with Dylan having been there to check on him.
Wordlessly, Aelita engulfed the two in another hug - a gentle one, given what Merle had just did to Chase. The two boys returned it without hesitation, as they were both just as happy for the unexpected reunion as she was. Words and catching up on things could wait for the moment.
Soon enough, the other Lyoko Warriors went to them, and all watched happily as the siblings hugged. At long last they had finally found some of their people...
For once, the teens felt ecstatic... they hadn't found all of their friends yet, but this was a great victory nevertheless...